A thumbnail history of the NYC animal shelter system.
From 1894 to 1994, the NYC animal shelters were run by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), which also performed other animal management duties under contract to the City of New York. Such contract was administered by the NYC Department of Health. Year after year, the City only funded the ASPCA contract with enough money to collect and kill the many thousands of animals found on the streets or turned in to the shelters. Under mounting pressure from animal advocates publicly criticizing the ASPCA for destroying as many as 70,000 animals a year, the ASPCA announced in 1993 that it would not renew its contract with the City the following year.
The City issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a contractor to replace the ASPCA, but did little to disseminate such RFP. The result was fewer than a dozen proposals were received and the City deemed none were capable of performing the animal control duties of the largest municipal animal shelter system in the country.
In 1994, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (through the office of then 1st Deputy Mayor Peter Powers) formed The Center for Animal Care and Control (CACC) to take over New York City's animal shelter system from the ASPCA. The CACC was incorporated without any public hearings and was internally awarded a contract by the Department of Health paid for with tax dollars. Instead of appointing experienced professionals, the Mayor appointed city officials with no experience or knowledge in animal care to run these shelters. For the past two years, the Sanitation Commissioner has been Chairman of the Board of the CACC.
The result: Fewer than 20% of the dogs and cats that enter these shelters survive. Before they die, these animals languish in crumbling and diseased facilities without proper medical care or housing. More than 100,000 healthy, adoptable animals have been needlessly killed, frozen and burned since 1995. The CACC does minimal advertising or fundraising to promote their adoptions. The Village Voice called CACC "The cruelest animal rescue system in the country."